autumn miso soup

Tuber veggies make good autumn miso soup.

Ingredients are as below (well, more or less use whatever veggies you have).

- chayote
- taro
- carrot
- onion
- fried thin tofu
- kombu
- miso

Cook veggies and mix in some miso to the soup. It's as simple as that.

home-made kefir

When I visited a supermarket last time, I noticed that all packages of yogurt did not indicate where they were produced. All of cheaper ones had 'dairy products', which is NOT milk. Then I thought, alright I am going to make my own yogurt out of milk I can clearly see where it was produced.

This is not exactly yogurt, but kefir. I warmem up about a litre of milk to around 45 degrees (celsius). I mixed the bacteria into the milk and left overnight between 45 - 30 degrees. When I woke up and checked, the kefir was ready.

This kefir can be used over and over with new packs of milk.

pickled daikon and turnip

Daikon and turnip are, I must say, pretty good for pickles.

Basically what you need is only salt.

Try out whatever other ingredients you like.

Turnip pickle and sauerkraut

This morning's production: Turnip pickle and sauerkraut.

Fast food, but no junk

House-garden's beans, home-made pickle, and tofu, these make up our fast, but no junk dinner.

mizuna (みずな) salad

Honestly, initially it was my wife's idea, but we have enjoyed mizuna salad for some time already.

This time, I mixed mizuna and radish. Dressing? Well, I used olive oil, salt and sudachi juice (and tabasco) today. But you can use whatever your favorite dressing.

turnip leaf pickle

Veggies and fruits we receive and cook are getting completely autumn and even showing switch to the winter. Farmers have harvested young turnips for bigger tubers at the real harvest.

We pickled the young turnip leaf, with salt, kombu and some pieces of dry red chili. A pickle usually serve my family with regular simple side dish for a week or more.

sudachi （すだち）honey juice

For a family who have sick members, squeeze sudachi (すだち) juice into a cup, pour hot water and as much honey as you like. That should be a good vitamin C source.

chard/garlic pasta

We've got some chard and wondered what to do. An idea appeared in my mind was a spaghetti dish.

Recipe for two adults:

- a bunch of chard
- half head of garlic
- spaghetti
- salt

Cook appropriate amount of spaghetti. At the same time, cut  chard into the size you want, peel and mash garlic pieces. Stir-fry mashed garlic and add chard later. Season with salt when done.

This was a pretty cool dish.

German melon ? (ドイツうり) pickles

German melon (ドイツうり) sounded strange. I surfed a bit on the web and found this cultivar is native to Sasayama. Why German? One article says that people tended to name things with some exotic foreign hints during some period. Still it sounds wired.

I found an article online and tried out pickling this. I sliced the German melon, sprinkled salt, placed them in a bowl together with a piece of こんぶ (kombu) and left it for a night.

My wife liked the pickle. I found it a bit wired because the pickle had a hint of melon. My daughter does not eat green colored-veggies as usual...

stir-fried aubergine and common beans

Stir-fried aubergine and *** is getting pretty routine at my home.

Ingredients
- a half head of garlic
- 3 aubergine
- a pack of common beans (もろっこまめ)
- miso
- honey

Chop above veggies into the size you want, stir-fry and season with a bit of honey and miso.

autumn miso soup

You don't know how to deal with veggies you've got? My general solution is "through them all into a soup". I mean they also tastes good.

Ingredients for my family were as below, but you can make miso soup with any veggies as you like. I prefer to make miso-soup with wither leaf-veggies only or tuber-crops only.

- 2/3 of a big sweet potato
- 1 rather large onion
- 1 burdock
- 2 carrots
- 5 dry mushrooms (しいたけ)
- 1/2 pack of thin deep-fried tofu
- miso

Stir-fried water spinach

I stir-fried water spinach (空心菜) together with garlic. That was pretty good.

Ingredients are

- a bunch of water spinach

- a a head half of garlic

- salt

how to cook もろへいや

もろへいや is another sticky sort of vegetale and nutritious.

I do not know any sophisticated way of cooking it. But I often simply pick a bunch and cook in boiled water for a couple of minutes, and cool down with tap water. Chop into pieces one find easy to fit in the mouth. Served with soy source or any other source you like. It's a very nutritious vegetable. Ones who have not yet tried out, I recommend you to.

A pumpkin dish

This pumpkin dish has been one of my favorite, almost routine and pretty Japanese stuff.

Ingredients are

- 1/2 pumpkin

- 2-3 carrots

- some dried kelp (こんぶ)

- couple of pieces of dry mushroom (しいたけ)

- two large spoonful of soy source

- two large spoonful of honey (or sugar)

First sork こんぶ & しいたけ in the water.

Dise the pumpkin and carrots into the size you want them to be.

Through all above and cook for around 15 min, and will be ready to be served.

In usual Japanese houses nowadays, people would use chemically synthesized fish and sea weed extract. Since I do not consume any meat or fish, I use こんぶ & しいたけ instead.

Once I spend a couple of days at 永平寺 (Eiheiji), a Zen temple. That was fun. People in strict zen temples do not consume meat or fish. Thus, they have invented a good variety of vegetarian recipes in throughout their history. Meals there were inspiring for my later life, too. For people who are interested, you can also find couple of books about the temple's recipes, like below. Vegetarians who have run out of their spring of ideas may find a rest in these books, too.

- "永平寺の精進料理 七六〇年受け継がれた健康の智慧を家庭でいただく"
- "永平寺の心と精進料理 "

simple okra | natto | rice meal

When other family members are not around, naturally (?) eating gets much simpler.

Okra is one of best companions on those occasions.

Okra needs to be cooked only for 2-3 minutes in boiled water and a pinch of salt. I would cool down  with tap water, but I think this process is not a must. Dise them. And it's all done to eat with soy source or whatever other spices you like.

Recommended for singles, too ;-) This is a simple, yet powerfully nutritious meal, I believe.

mixed stir-fried veggie (aubergine, common beans)

In the summer, somehow I have much more chances to stir-fry veggies.

Ingredients

- 3 aubergines
- a pack of common beans
- a pack of mushroom (this time I used しいたけ)
- salt / pepper / soy source to season

もろへいや うどん

Somebody told me that もろへいや originally was grown in Egypt. This sticky leaf-vegetable is supposed to be very rich in nutrition (richer than the spinach).

It cannot be simpler. Cook もろへいや for a minute, chop into around 2 cm. Place on top of cooked and cooled うどん。Sprinkle as much soy source as you want.

もろへいや is also good to eat with soy source.

Mixed stir-fried veg

I personally can get inspirations easier out of summer veggies, like beans and greens (well, often stir-frying though). I realized that a family member of mine (native to east Europe) prefers to cook tuber veggies (well mostly soups). I noticed that this is an interesting contrast.

This time, I stir-fried miscellaneous veggies I found at home, namely zucchini, mushroom, pepper and common beans. Was simple and good.

Stir-fried aubergine, pepper and zucchini in みそ

The clue is aubergine. The rest, you can use virtually any veggies you have at home. Somehow I like this combination of aubergine stir-fried in rather plenty of oil and seasoned with みそ and honey.

Ingredients are
- 3 aubergines
- 1 zucchini
- 5 rather small peppers
- みそ
- honey (or sugar)
- salt

Basically, slice aubergines (I prefer to cut aubergine as on the picture for frying. In this way, aubergines get more crispy.) and zucchini. Cut also peppers.

Start frying with aubergines and zucchini. Add peppers bit later.

When veggies are almost ready, add みそ, salt, honey (or sugar) and salt as much as you like.

souerkraut and pickled らっきょ were successful

Couple of weeks ago, I started to pickle らっきょ and souerkraut. It would be disaster to wait for couple of weeks and find pickles were spoiled or something like that... Luckily, these experiments were successful.

おかひじき dressed in vinegar

In the summer, sour and spicy dishes are indispensable.

It was my first time to see this bit bazaar-looking veg, called おかひじき, but I tried to search for a recipe on the internet and came across to one. Though the original suggested to use their own source mixture, I used simple vinegar and honey. This dish was unexpectedly good and refreshing. Recommended.



Ingredients are

- おかひじき

- thin fried tofu (うすあげ)

- vinegar

- honey or salt as you like

- soy source



Prepare boiled water and add a bit of salt. Cook おかひじき for 2-3min. Briefly fry うすあげ and cut into narrow rectangles.

Add as much as vinegar, honey (or sugar?) and soy source (or salt if you do not have soy source).

How different strategies we've got

Goya, like an ivy, prolongs its arms to places they can hook themselves. They do not have eyes (but light-detector). Many plants even grows only upwards and tens of centimeters diameter.

I? I have moved up and down from East and West, from North to South, yet not settled.

A lot of questions arise. but the most tangible words I have at the moment are, It's amazing how different strategies we've got.

BTW, our garden's tomatoes are getting really sweet.

barszcz (borscht)

A member of my family said, "Oh, this is barszcz". She is from Central East Europe.

I almsot gave up the idea to cook barszcz when I heard that it requires an hour for the beetroot to be cooked separately. However, I found a website saying that indeed microwave requires only 4-8 minutes.

For barszcz, ingredients are as follows. But one can use indeed whatever vegetable for the soup.

- couple of beetroots (in our case, we used one rather large size beetroot)
- 2 onions
- several young carrots
- salt

Basically, cook a soup out of onions, carrots, salt and whatever else you want.

Beetroots should be microwaved for 4-8 minutes depending on the size of beetroots you've got and the capacity of the microwave. Do not peel before microwaving. Cool the beetroots a while so that you can handle and peel. Grate the beetroots and add it into the soup.

DO NOT boil after you add the beetroot to the soup. I boiled the red beetroot juice once and the color was transformed from red to brown, which is critical for this soup whose one of fundamental characteristic is the vivid red colour.

stir-fried carrot-leaf/beetroot leaf/うすあげ（とうふ）

It was rather very experimental, but I tried to stir fry carrot-leaf beetroot leaf and うすあげ（とうふ） all together. My wife did not like it, but I like the herb-like oder of carrot leaf.

Ingredients are
- a bunch of carrot leaf
- a bunch of beetroot leaf
- a pack of うすあげとうふ
- salt

Simply chop them, through all of them into a pan and stir fry.

How about the taste? I must say some people may like, some not...

sauerkraut (sour cabbage?)

Is this German word, sauerkraut, commonly used in English, too? Ich habe keine idee was sauerkraut auf English ist...


In last summer, I pickled some cabbage and made some souerkraut.


Ingredients are


- a whole cabbage
- 7-8 big spoonfuls of salt (or as much as you feel necessary)

Some people make it with some good herbs, but I make it only with salt.

Slice a cabbage. Sprinkle enough salt. Leave it about a week before you can start eating (place something heavy enough). Parts of cabbage gets rotten if not dipped in the pickle liquid. So, make sure to place something heavy enough.

simple and nutritious lunch box

Home baked whole wheat bread with butter and rasins, cheese and home garden-grown tomatoes will be a simple, but nutritious lunch box for my 2-year old daughter.

pickled らっきょ

I tried to search for English name for らっきょ on Wikipedia, but ended up with some strange Latin botanical name.

Recently some might have seen this onion- or garlic-like stuff sold at nearest supermarket. When I visited one, I was tempted to try out.


The original recipe I referred to can be found here.

Ingredients are

- 1kg らっきょ

- several chili

- 150 ml pre-boiled water

- 350 ml vinegar (I used ordinary rice vinegar)

- 250 ml honey (The original recipe says 250 g sugar)

Wash らっきょ thoroughly. Peels will be scratched off during this process. This takes some time.

Then cut off the root and top. This requires another bit of time. Then dip らっきょ in boiled water for 10 seconds.

While doing these, you can sterilize glass jars in boiled water.

When らっきょ and jars are ready, pack all of the ingredients into sterilized jars and let it stand for 10 days or 3 weeks depending on your preference. Shake the jar well couple of times a day for the first couple of days.

If you want to make it more properly, らっきょ can be pickled with salt for a night prior to be washed and pickled in vinegar.

Sour food is precious during deadly hot summers.

Micro Universe is a bit exaggerated?

In my family's tiny home garden, there are now couple of vegs growing/starting to grow.

Waste water and kitchen wastes are being circulated at home.

I notice that if better water-reuse system can be introduced to houses, plants can be happier. It seems that plants need more water. Especially, the grass will be happier with much more water supply.

My daughter learns a lot in the home garden, so that to some degree, the home garden serves as a biology class room for her. When we walk, she immediately notices aubergine, tomatos and other vegs that grow at home. On top of it, she has got more awareness on generally plant species and how plants grow.

そらまめ | broad bean

I was rather surprised to hear from a friend of mine (born in the States and lived in couple South-East Asian countries) that he did not know how to eat broad beans (or そらまめ in Japanese). This crop has been so familiar to me. And a Polish-born family of mine knew of it pretty well. This is why I did not expect one would not know... Well it is good to hear sometimes that my perception is not ubiquitous.

そらまめ goes pretty well with beer, which some people around me claim. How to cook?

Prepare some water boiled, peel beans, cook them with as much as salt you want for 3 min or even a bit shorter. It's as simple as this.

Give it a try.

Whole-grain bread

Since my family is (basically) vegetarian, I pay more attention to nutrition balance. Whole wheat bread is far more nutritious (rich in vitamins, etc.) than white-grain rice. Because this staple food has quite high nutrition value, simple meals which consist of only slices of bread and cheese should easily suffice even young children's important growth stages.

There are more reasons to bake at home:

- My daughter/I do not take sugar, so that bread we find at shops are not our options.

- It is very hard to find a quite heavy bread like ours or German.

Allright, there are lots discussions about nutrition. But a man do no live only on bread. Well, such difficult discussions should be discussed else-where. I might cover a relatively simple topic at some point...

A friend (born by Norwegian parents and bred in Japan) of mine. The recipe cannot be simpler for bread I think. But it requires me good coule of hours. So I usually bake breads on my days off.

Ingredients are

• 6 cups of whole-grain wheat flour
• 3 cups of water (2 cups if you make white-flour)
• 6 tea-spoonful of dry yeast
• a big spoonful of salt
• around 3-5 big-spoonful olive oil
• butter (to grease forms)

Obviously you need forms and a oven (I use electronic micro-oven).

1. Mix 3 cups of warm water (around 45 – 50 degree celsius), dry yeast for around 10-15 min. You will see foam covering the surface then. Mixing in small amount of honey would help yeast's activation process.
2. Add flour, salt, live oil and kneel.
3. Let it raise for around 1 hour (place the bowl on a warm something if not in summer).
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Tear the dough into tennis-ball size, punch around three of them into a form.
5. Bake for 30 min at 200 degree celsius.
6. Cool for 1 hour at room temperature.

I recently bake once in every two weeks. I bake enough for two weeks. Some are packed in plastic bags and frozen till we need. Some stay outside for the next day's breakfast or lunch. Some goes to the fridge.

A morning in the home garden

In our tiny home garden, tomatoes have started to produce fruits.

First cucumber came rather without notice. It was hidden under a large leaf.

Goya is trying to provide us shade. Getting prepared for the deadly hot summer.

spaghetti peperoncino (Or let's call it this way)

It was in Philippines where I tried out this simple spaghetti and became a fan of. I cook this simple dish often ever since.

In Philippines, esp. in Manila, foods are, as a friend of mine expresses, greasy. A meal never completes without a bunch of meat, whatever sort. In most of East (including South) Asia, I struggle searching for vegetarian foods. Philippines was one of worst in the sense that people do not often cook, so that it is even hard to find a stand or a supermarket to locate a piece of broccoli or anything.

Spaghetti peperoncino is a very very simple dish with
- spaghetti
- 4-5 cloves of relatively large garlic (for a person)
- peperoncino (chili)
- salt
- add whatever herb if you like to

Cook spaghetti as you do usually. While spaghetti is getting cooked, peal garlic, mash, chop roughly an d throw it into heated pan (surely with oil). I used to cook dishes with only sliced garlic, but crashed one tastes pretty much different and gives stronger garlic flavour to dishes.

For authentic spaghetti peperoncino, it is supposed to add some red chili into the pan when the garlic is almost done. However, I often sprinkle tabasco partially because if I mix chili into the garlic, my daughter cannot eat, partially because using tabasco is more convenient (although it gives sourness of vinegar).

vegetarian にらやき or something similar

Your children do not like greens? This is my daughter's case. I feel that it is quite bad that my daughter does not like greens under the condition that her diet is vegetarian.

I try to make her eat greens which she refuses. One of few things out of which she eats green veg is this にらやき, which is originally Korean. You can find English wikipedia article here. In Korean original recipe, it has some seafood elements, but I make it far simpler and veg.

Ingredients are
- about 3 cups of flour (or whatever amount your family require for a meal)
- a bunch of にら
- salt
- water

Chop a bunch of にら as in the picture below:

Mix all of the ingredients and add as much water as the mixture becomes like pancake's.

Fry thin pancake-like にらやき sheet by sheet.

Please find whatever source you like. We usually use soy-course, but you can use whatever source you like as long as you do not adhere to authenticity of originals...

I recommend you try out, especially if your children do not like greens in other forms.

onion salad

It does not even have to be called a salad.

Slice a onion, leave for half hour till the sharpness disappears. Pour some vinegar (and olive oil if you like) and whatever herb you like on top of it.